Astrology | Week of Nov. 10, 2011

ARIES March 21-April 19: The title of this week’s movie is Uproar of Love, starring the Fantasy Kid and The Most Feeling Machine In The World. It blends romance and science fiction, with overtones of espionage and undertones of revolution for the hell of it. Comic touches will slip in at unexpected moments. When you’re not up to your jowls in archetypes, you might be able to muster the clarity to gorge yourself on the earthly delights that are spread from here to the edge of the abyss.

TAURUS April 20-May 20: How’s your relationship with your muse? Don’t tell me that you’re not an artist so you don’t have a muse. Even garbage collectors need muses. Even farmers. Even politicians. All of us need to be in touch with a mysterious, tantalizing source of inspiration that teases our sense of wonder and goads us on to life’s next adventures. So I ask you again: What have you and your muse been up to lately? I say it’s high time for you to infuse your connection with a dose of raw mojo. And if for some sad reason you don’t have a muse, I urge you to go out in quest of new candidates. (P.S. A muse isn’t necessarily a person; he or she might also be an animal, an ancestor, a spirit or a hero.)

GEMINI May 21-June 20: Funky pagan scientists at Zen State University have found that the regular consumption of Free Will Astrology can be effective in smoothing unsightly wrinkles on your attitude, scouring away stains on your courage and disposing of old garbage stuck to your karma. They’ve also gathered testimony from people who claim to have experienced spontaneous healings of nagging ailments and chronic suffering while under the influence of these oracles. If I were you, I’d try to take advantage of such benefits right now. You could really use some healing. Luckily, it looks like there’ll be an array of other curative options available to you as well. Be aggressive about seeking them out.

CANCER June 21-July 22: Given the lush and exotic astrological factors now coming to bear on your destiny, and due to the possibility that something resembling actual magic may soon make an appearance, I am taking a leap of faith with this week’s horoscope. Are you game? There is a hypothetical scene described by the English poet Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834) that would normally be too outlandish to take seriously, but I suspect it’s a possible match for your upcoming adventures. “What if you slept,” he wrote, “and what if in your sleep you dreamed, and what if in your dream you went to heaven and there you plucked a strange and beautiful flower, and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?”

LEO July 23-Aug. 22: I was musing on how slow I am to learn the lessons I need to master — how hard it can be to see the obvious secrets that are right in front of me. But I felt better after I came across the logo for the Jung Institute in San Francisco, which is dedicated to the study of psychology and psychotherapy. The symbol that it has chosen to embody its ruling spirit consists of four snails creeping their way around a center point — a witty acknowledgment of the plodding nature of the human psyche. I bring this to your attention, Leo, because it’s important for you to give yourself credit for how much you’ve grown since the old days — even if your progress seems intolerably gradual.

VIRGO Aug. 23-Sept. 22: It will be a good week to have nice long talks with yourself — the more, the better. The different sub-personalities that dwell within you need to engage in vigorous dialogues that will get all their various viewpoints out in the open. I even recommend coaxing some of those inner voices to manifest themselves outside the confines of your own head — you know, by speaking out loud. If you feel inhibited about giving them full expression where they might be overheard by people, find a private place that will allow them to feel free to be themselves.

LIBRA Sept. 23-Oct. 22: During the reign of President George W. Bush, many Americans viewed France as being insufficiently sympathetic with American military might. So enraged were some conservatives that they tried to change the name of French fries to freedom fries and French toast to freedom toast. The culminating moment in this surrealistic exercise came when Bush told UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, “The French don’t even have a word for entrepreneur” — unaware that “entrepreneur” is a word the English language borrowed from the French. The moral of the story, as far as you’re concerned, Libra: Make sure you know the origins of everyone and everything you engage with, especially as they affect your ability to benefit from entrepreneurial influences.

SCORPIO Oct. 23-Nov. 21: The Cunnilinguistic Dicktionary defines the newly coined word “mutinyversal” as “rebellion against the whole universe.” I think it would be an excellent time for you to engage in a playful, vivacious version of that approach to life. This is one of those rare times when you have so many unique gifts to offer and so many invigorating insights to unleash that you really should act as if you are mostly right and everyone else is at least half-wrong. Just one caution: As you embark on your crusade to make the world over in your image, do it with as much humility and compassion as you can muster.

SAGITTARIUS Nov. 22-Dec. 21: In Mongolia, there’s a famous fossil of two dinosaurs locked in mortal combat. Forever frozen in time, a Velociraptor is clawing a Protoceratops, which in turn is biting its enemy’s arm. They’ve been holding that pose now for, oh, 80 million years or so. I’m shoving this image in your face, Sagittarius, so as to dare you and encourage you to withdraw from your old feuds and disputes. It’s a perfect time, astrologically speaking, to give up any struggle that’s not going to matter 80 million years from now. (More info: tinyurl.com/ DinosaurFight.)

CAPRICORN Dec. 22-Jan. 19: “In your experience, who is the best-smelling actor that you’ve worked with?” TV host Jon Stewart asked his guest Tom Hanks. “Kevin Bacon,” replied Hanks. Why? Not because of the bacon-as-a-delicious-food angle, although that would be funny. “He smells like a mix of baby powder and Listerine,” Hanks said. Keep this perspective in mind, Capricorn. I think you should be engaged in a great ongoing quest to put yourself in situations with pleasing aromas. I mean this in both the metaphorical and literal sense. To set yourself up for meaningful experiences that provide you with exactly what you need, follow your nose.

AQUARIUS Jan. 20-Feb. 18: According to my reading of the omens, Aquarius, you can finally take advantage of a long-standing invitation or opportunity that you have always felt unworthy of or unready for. Congratulations on being so doggedly persistent about ripening the immature parts of yourself. Now here’s an extra bonus: This breakthrough may in turn lead to you finding a lost piece to the puzzle of your identity.

PISCES Feb. 19-March 20:My acquaintance Bob takes a variety of meds for his bipolar disorder. They work pretty well to keep him out of the troughs, but he misses the peaks. Last time he saw his psychiatrist he told her he wished he could stop taking the complicated brew of drugs and just take a happy pill every day. The psychiatrist told him that if he ever found such a thing, she’d love to take it herself. Wouldn’t we all? I’m pleased to report that you are now very close to locating the next best thing to a happy pill, Pisces. It may require you to at least partially give up your addiction to one of your customary forms of suffering, though. Are you prepared to do that?